Morning all, I'm a long time lurker reader of the December baby bus, but don't ofteny post. I just wanted to say thank you to you all for all of the information and advice that you've shared over the last 8 months! It's really reassuring to know that there are other people out there going through the same things at the same time!
I'm 35 weeks, and booked in for an elcs right at the start of December due to previous medical history. I have a 4 year old ds. I've started my maternity leave already, but because of SPD have been on crutches for the last couple of months, so I'm really glad there's only a couple of weeks to go now :)
All this talk over the last couple of days about feeding, I just wanted to share my experience of the first couple of days, and find out if it was normal/to be expected this time as well? DS was born late morning by elcs, and was quite sleepy the first night (presumably due to the medication I had received for the operation). He was bf, but the second and third nights in the hospital, he would be feeding/sleeping on and off for most of the day, but come 9 pm at night (when visiting hours stopped and DH had to go home so I would be on my own) he would wake up, and be feeding almost constantly until about 2 o'clock in the morning, when the midwives would take pity on me, and take him into the night nursery. I can't remember now whether he was feeding all that time (although I was so tired, that is certainly what it felt like), or if he would feed for a bit, fall asleep, then before he could be put back in the cot would wake up again so I would start feeding him again. My local hospital rules are day 1 of a cs you are bed-bound (you can hold your baby obviously, but someone else has to get them in and out of the cot). Day 2 you can get get up and can carry the baby, but can't lift/put them back into their cot because it's too much of a strain on the stomach muscles, it's only on day 3 or 4 that you are allowed to lift your baby out of their cot by themselves. I can't remember now if at night DS fell asleep after a feed, then by the time a MW had come to put him back in the cot he would be awake again. During the night the MWs told me a couple of times that if he was feeding that much then I didn't have enough supply for him and he really needed topping up with formula, or else kept asking was I sure I didn't want to formula feed him, which I declined as I thought that might interfere with my supply. I was adamant that I wanted to bf, so I declined that and then felt quite guilty that I wasn't satisfying his hunger. I did continue with bf, and my milk came in on about day 5. Is this a normal pattern for the first couple of days (feeding almost constantly for several hours at night time)? I've spoken with other mums, some of whom have experienced something similar, but because the MWs at the hospital thought it wasn't right it really made me question it. Did other second/third/fourth timers out there find the same thing?
I would also second finding out the contact details of local bf counsellors. Other than those first nights, I didn't have problems with bf until about week 6 when it suddenly got incredibly painful. My HV checked the latch and couldn't see a problem, but it didn't get any better. I called the NCT bf helpline and was given the contact details of a local wonderwoman counsellor, who saw me that evening, and spent a hour or two putting everything right. I really credit her with helping me to continue bf, as without her advice I would have stopped because it was too painful. Because of her advice DS was bf until just after he was 1 and I returned to work. Unfortunately for me she has now retired, but I will definitely be looking up details of other local advice lines in advance, just in case.
I've just read back through my post - sorry it's so long